After a leisurely breakfast we decided to head north to Puerto Los Gatos, a supposedly beautiful anchorage in colorful rocks. It was all of two miles from Timbabichi, and the winds were with us, so we sailed happily along and were there in no time. Sure enough, surrounded by red cliffs on the north side, black rocks on the south - and rugged high mountains to the west, it was spectacular.

The second afternoon Manuel, a fisherman from Timbabichi, came by asking if we were interested in any pescado or langostino (fish or lobster). Of course we were! Off he went promising us fish later. He returned empty handed once, but asked for a Coca Cola, which we gladly handed over, and then later he returned with a load of fish. Maureen opted for the biggest, a nice red snapper (David was on the beach with Duke and was offended later to find out that he had more than just the one snapper ! ) When Manuel came back through again, we waylaid him in our dinghy and bought a second fish, a cabrillo spotted like

a leopard! When David later dressed out mr. cabrillo he found a nice big fresh octopus in the cabrillo's tummy. Maureen and Manuel had a lengthy conversation and Maureen learned all about Timbabichi - it is a cattle ranch, but because it is so dry, the cattle are fed alfalfa ... She also heard about Manuel's 5 daughters, 3 sons, 3 dogs, 2 cats etc ...

Late that afternoon there came a sailboat, and lo and behold, it was The Boat - Duke's favorite people! They ordered their lobsters from Manuel and off he went again. Another peaceful night was spent in this perfect anchorage, with several beach walks admiring rock formations and shell searching. Eventually 3 Moorings boats showed up, and then a huge old ferry boat serving as a small

cruise ship. Sea Voyager unloaded 50 people and kayaks, picked up the kayaks 2 hours later and then began a beach fiesta complete with tiki lights that lasted late into the night. They were gone by the time we arose early the next morning. Our friend Manuel the fisherman knew some of the crew of Sea Voyager and was happily able to attend the fiesta to add a little local color for the touristas. During our morning beach walk, the crew from the last Moorings boat left in the anchorage came to shore in their dinghy asking about high tide. They had run up onto the reef that extends into the bay from the south shore.

We checked on our computer and found the moderate high had just happened, a low was coming at 2 pm, and the next high (mas grande) was at 8pm. We headed over to their boat and tried heeling her over with the boom off to the side loaded with as many bodies as possible, but no luck. Manuel eventually showed up and tried pulling her off the rocks, but that didn't work either. About 4PM, on a rising tide, Manuel and another Baja pescador were able to help El Shidah (a Jenneau 494) heel over by pulling on the main halyard with their Pangas, El Shidah's diesel running forward, and OFF SHE CAME ! Us concerned cruisers, who had tried to help earlier and recommended waiting for the High Tide, were impressed by the technique.

Editors Note: Moments ago, I briefly quit working on this web page, Maureen had called from the cockpit. It seems El Shidah is not the only vessel struggling today. It appears that this afternoon, as the seas have built slightly in a nice 15 knot SW breeze, Tenacious is slipping her anchor. This is getting old, it may be time to discipline the crew. We addressed the situation, we will have to monitor issues more closely, I presume we are not headed for a reef or the beach at this point.

The waves and winds politely subsided after we let out a little extra rode, and Tenacious and crew spent a peaceful night resting quietly. We awoke to a beautiful morning and fresh new day. It looks like we need to head on up the road to a new anchorage, next stop "the incomparable Bahia Agua Verde". Stay tuned for further updates campers.

The picture above is a puffer fish. They are covered with many - many spikes. They come in various sizes, from about the size of a golf ball, to larger than a football, and even Duke knows not to roll on the dead ones on the beach. This one is of the size of a mini football. There are also many varieties. We have heard that the one with a big round target on his back is deadly-deadly to the slightest touch. How about this variety?, we honestly don't know, but he sure has oodles of spikes. By the way, there were about 200 of these Below Tenacious this morning before we sailed for Agua Verde, no big deal, but it was pretty cool. Now yesterday, I had to finish scraping the bottom of the boat. All the way to the bottom of the keel. It's only 6 1/2 feet down, but that's about as far as I can dive, hold my breath and scrape barnacles. As far as I knew, there were only about 4 of these chewing on the barnacles I was knocking off and nibbling on the lines that I hang onto along the side of the boat. I sure hope this species is not deadly-deadly. The day before that, there were about 8 of them trying to help. I gave up, swam for the ladder, and threatened to whop Maureen if she didn't stop laughing at me swimming away from the little-bitty puffers, my little friends as she calls them now . . . Jelly fish seem to come and go with the tides, so generally we do avoid diving when they are floating by as this fellow was in the evening (this guy is about 9 inches in diameter). For more excitement, we finally saw our first shark while snorkling a day ago. He was only about 3 or 4 feet long and scooted away before I could take his picture.